It is believed that taxidermy has been around for many centuries. It may even go back to the beginning of man. Saving trophies has always been a favorite pastime of man. When man first began to hunt he would want a trophy of his kill. The preservation methods were poor so there is no clear record of the beginning of taxidermy.

The Egyptians mummified their cats, dogs, and other animals at their death. In a way this is actually a form of taxidermy. It was all about preserving the bodies after death. Many of these mummies of animals have been found along with what is believed to be the owners of the animals.

Ancient Egyptian Mummification

During the Middle Ages taxidermy took a serious twist. The preservation methods improved greatly. Birds were often stuffed to use during falconry hunting. Although they were stuffed with some strange materials at times, the skin preservation had improved tremendously.

There is a mounting of a rhinoceros in a museum in Italy that is said to be the oldest mounting in the history of taxidermy. The mounting is believed to have been done in the 16th century. The preservation techniques were good enough that the mounting of the rhinoceros is still in great shape.

Pierre Belon, a naturalist is the first person to have written a book on how to do taxidermy. This book was written in 1555. Other instructions on this subject were later written during the 1600’s. The preservation methods have changed considerably since these books have been written.

Taxidermy became very popular during the Victorian era. People would go on their travels and want a memento of where they had been. Many times this was a mounting of an animal or bird. Also many museums started using mountings in their displays. This gave taxidermists a lot of business. The art of anthropomorphic taxidermy started about this time. This special niche of taxidermy uses animals in poses that would actually be found in humans instead of animals. There is a very famous piece that was done by Walter Potter. In this mounting kittens are posed as if at a tea party having tea and mice.

The 20th century brought about the modern era in taxidermy. Posing animals and birds as they would appear in real life became popular and is still popular today. Some of the well-known taxidermists of the 20th century are Van Ingen & Van Ingen, William T. Horneday, Leon Pray, and Carl E. Akeley. The mountings started having a form placed inside the preserved skin instead of being stuffed with straw and other materials. The forms make it possible to have a more realistic shape and look to the animal. The forms are made to look like the animal would if seen in the wild.

Although taxidermy is not as popular as it was in the Victorian era, it is still an art form which people can appreciate. People still enjoy their trophies and museums still use mounts in their displays. Today the art of preservation has reached its pinnacle and the mounts will last for a very, very long time.

]]>http://taxidermyhobbyist.com/history-of-taxidermy/how-taxidermy-got-its-start.html/feed0Innovators of Modern Taxidermyhttp://taxidermyhobbyist.com/history-of-taxidermy/innovators-of-modern-taxidermy.html
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The word taxidermy is of Greek origin “taxi” and “derma”, which means arrangement of skin. Taxidermy is a common term that describes the techniques and methods to reproduce or mount three dimensional representations of dead animals for exhibition or for study purpose. It can be performed on all vertebrates including fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. There has been significant improvement in the art of taxidermy over the last century. Taxidermists who are well known for their valuable services in the field of taxidermy are mentioned below

Van Ingen & Van Ingen (1900 – 1998).

Van Ingen & Van Ingen was South Indian Taxidermy Company located in Mysore founded by Eugene Van Ingen and later run by his three sons Botha, De Wet and Joubert Van Ingen. They were famous for preserving their hunt in the most natural poses. The company was well known for their large number of leopard and tiger mounts that are now spread all over the world in the form of full mounts, head mounts, rug mounts with heads and flat animal rugs. In its heyday the company was regarded as one of the best in taxidermy and served not only the Maharajas of India but also numerous nobles from all over the world.

Martha Ann Maxwell (1831-1881)

Taxidermy Innovator Martha Ann Maxwell

Martha was a first women field naturalist who acquired and prepared her own samples. In 1860 she traveled to Colorado Territory during the first sign of Pike’s Peak Gold Rush. Her inspiration was the work of a local taxidermist after which she started skinning animals for artistic endeavors. She was a talented hunter who devised modern procedures to skin and mount the remains of animals. It was her work that initiated the basis of modern taxidermy. She learned about the otus asio maxwelliae (Maxwell Owl) including other species not formerly known to exist in Colorado. She presented her collection of preserved birds and animals at both the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and Colorado Agricultural Society Fair in Denver. Martha remained a vegetarian all through her life.

Louis Dufresne (1752-1832)
One of the famous naturalists known to travel on the extraordinary journey Astrolabe ship was Louis Dufresne. The ship sailed to islands of Trinidad, Madeira, and Tenerife, rounded at Cape Horn, lingered at Concepción and finally docked at the Hawaiian Islands. It continued its journey along the northern coast of America and all the way up to Alaska. The expedition sailed across the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean and eventually returned to France with profound knowledge. In early 1790, Dufresne became a well known taxidermist and worked as a curator at Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. He introduced the idea of arsenic soap to preserve birds. This technique enabled the museum to put together one of the world’s biggest collection of birds. Dufresne had a private collection in which he compiled approximately 12,000 insects, 1600 bird specimen and nearly 800 eggs from all over the world. His collection included assortment of corals, shells, fossils and amphibians.

Taxidermy before the Victorian and Edwardian eras was a rather crude affair, mostly used by hunters, explorers, and scientists to preserve specimens for lack of a better method. It was only during the beginning of the 20th century that taxidermy really evolved into the art form seen today.

Prior to the 20th century, most “taxidermists” would really have been upholsterers, who treated the tanned animal hide like a chair cushion. After it had been tanned at a tannery, the hide would be sewn up and stuffed with what was available, usually cotton, rags, sawdust, or similar materials. Unfortunately, this produced some very saggy, shapeless, terrible-looking end products, and the practice gave taxidermy a rather bad reputation. What was even worse, however, was that items like glass eyes or artificial noses were not yet in use. Since these body parts couldn’t be treated by tanning the same way leather could, they were often left as-is, which meant that they would decay over time. So, in addition to not creating lifelike mounts of hunters’ kills or biological specimens, this mode of taxidermy failed at adequately preserving the pieces it made.

Victorian Mounted Head of Sable Antelope

During the early 20th century, the practice of “stuffing” animals began to fall by the wayside in favor of mounting them over more anatomically-correct wooden models. The skins would generally still have to be filled out with some form of stuffing, however, unlike the boneless things of the 18th and 19th century, Victorian taxidermy specimens more closely resembled their living counterparts. As big game hunting came into fashion, wealthy sportsmen (like then-President Theodore Roosevelt) began to commission taxidermists to make hunting trophies for them. Unlike the lifelike poses most specimens are placed into today, the fashion for Victorian taxidermy was to place creatures in particularly savage, snarling postures that emphasized the bravery of the hunter who’d taken them down. These were generally used as décor pieces in sitting rooms or libraries in Victorian homes. Fortunately, since glass eyes and other artificial soft tissue parts were in use by then, the display continuing to decay was not an issue.

Some taxidermists, however, were less interested in creating a realistic look than in using specimens (usually small ones, like rabbits or squirrels) to set up little tableaux. Walter Potter is perhaps the most famous example of this art form, as he created several famous dioramas of rabbits at school, guinea pigs playing in an orchestra, and kittens having tea. Most of his work didn’t simply involve mounted animals, either- almost all of them had extremely detailed, suitably miniaturized props and costumes, as well.

Though Victorian taxidermy was still a ways off from resembling the highly realistic specimens modern taxidermy produces, it was during this time that it really began to develop into a sophisticated skill. While previous specimens were only good for preserving unusual animals or kills out of necessity, the 20th century took taxidermy into being a sought-after decorative art form.

Though people generally think of old, dusty museum specimens when they think of taxidermy, the art of mounting animal hides has undergone a tremendous amount of advancement. To understand exactly how far it has come, however, it’s necessary to look back at its origins, first.

Taxidermy has existed since man began hunting. Archeological evidence of very early taxidermy shows the remains of animals draped over rocks and blocks of wood, which experts speculate may have served either a totemic purpose, or simply served as target practice for novice hunters. Taxidermy that would be recognizable to modern eyes, however, didn’t really begin until the 18th century.

During the 1700s, taxidermy served a dual purpose- it preserved a hunter’s kills, and it saved unusual biological specimens. Explorers like Darwin and Cook needed taxidermy to preserve the new species they found in their travels, since the only way to do so prior to that was to paint or draw the animal, a practice which was fraught with inaccuracy. Unfortunately, most actual taxidermy was done by upholsterers, who simply sewed up the skin and stuffed it with whatever material was available- cotton, wool, rags, sand, sawdust, or something similar. Since stuffing has a tendency to settle, time and gravity made these “stuffed animals” turn out very badly, which is why modern taxidermists prefer the term “mounting” over “stuffing” today. Coupled with the lack of mounting skill back then was the fact that replacing items like eyes, tongues, or noses wasn’t yet common practice. Since these parts don’t react to tanning the same way leather does, they would continue to break down long after the hide was stuffed, making taxidermy a rather poor means of preservation.

In the Victorian era, taxidermists began to take an interest in creating more lifelike mounts. Wooden models were used, which the skin could be stretched over. Though many specimens still required some degree of stuffing, these end products were far more anatomically accurate than the previous “stuffed” animals. Eyes and other soft tissue parts began to be replaced with wood and glass at this point, which meant that some of the best examples of Victorian taxidermy still survive today.

In the mid-1970s, once plastics began becoming more and more abundant, polyurethane foam models began to be used instead of the older, wooden Victorian ones. These had the advantage of being lightweight, and their shape and ability to be sculpted meant that stuffing was no longer required. As a result, modern taxidermy pieces have a much more anatomically correct, natural look than older specimens, and do not shift or decay. Well-done modern taxidermy is rightly considered sculptural wildlife art, and is invaluable for preserving and demonstrating animals in museums, though other artists choose to take their work in a more surrealist or horror direction.

The art of taxidermy has advanced greatly from the first lumpy, stuffed hides from the 18th century. Modern pieces are not only visually stunning, but lifelike and long-lasting, as well.